The University of Tokyo iii Exhibition 2021 “Kyolibration”, which marks its 23rd anniversary this year, was held for five days from November 19th to 23rd. The iii Exhibition is a media art exhibition where students take the initiative in deciding on the concept, creating the exhibits, and curating the exhibition as part of their studies in the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies. Students who had participated in the pre-exhibition “0PUNK” in July continued to take on the challenge of exhibition-making under a new exhibition theme.

The exhibition continued the online exhibition format, the same as the pre-exhibition. An online event “The University of Tokyo iii Exhibition the Live” was held on Nov. 20th to attract more people to the exhibition.

In the first part of the event, the creators of the works took the stage for a discussion about the concepts of their works and their own background related to the works. In the second part, ANB Tokyo Director Junya Yamamine was invited to have a special conversation with Professor Yasuaki Kakehi, the course instructor for the exhibition, to explore the uniqueness of the iii Exhibition. This two-hour-long in-depth conversation is now available on our YouTube channel.*

The theme of both the exhibition and pre-exhibition shows the way we perceive the world-wide change in response to the social constraints of COVID-19. The theme “Kyolibration” conveys the combined meaning of the words “Kyoli”(“distance” in Japanese) and “Calibration”. As the word “Kyoli” refers to the unique overlaps between each of us, our individualities are revealed through the way we perceive the physical and psychological “Kyoli” from various objects. “Kyolibration” contains our intention to compare and reconsider the “Kyoli” around us, just as calibration, the act of comparing measurement values.

With the teachers’ guidance, we keep thinking through the “Kyoli” between ourselves and others during the process of exhibit-making. Also, reflecting on the pre-exhibition’s experience, we have put much emphasis on the online exhibition space itself as one of the exhibits, both to encourage the visitor’s interactivity and to improve the user experience. During the five days of the exhibition, over 2000 people visited the exhibition. Visitors commented on both the exhibition format, such as “I thought the ability to change the sequence was unique to online” as well as “I liked the whole page of the work,” and on the exhibits itself, such as “the works made me perceive and aware of things I was not usually aware of” as well as “the point of view was interesting.”

The whole exhibition making was an unprecedented experiment, as the entire process from preparation to opening was conducted online. However, it has been a valuable experience for us to reflect on the “Kyoli” between each exhibit, between each visitor, between each student, and between each “self”.

In closing, we would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to all who have cooperated in organizing the iii Exhibition 2021, as well as to all the visitors.

The details of this exhibition are attached below:
Official website: https://www.iiiexhibition.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/iiiexhibition
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iiiexhibition/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iiiexhibition/
*YouTube Live: https://youtu.be/cQrEynxYMjY(Event video archive)

Text: Aiko Ichikura (Master’s student, PR team leader of the iii Exhibition)
Translation: Siyuan Zhang (Master’s student, PR team member of the iii Exhibition)
English proofreading: David Buist (Project senior specialist)